A Penny Saved? Not likely.

Do you have the problem of getting to the bookstore and finding nothing to buy? I know there are lots and lots of great knitting books out there, because I was pouring through them yesterday. But I have "X" amount of money, and my qualifications for a new knitting book are strict. It has to have patterns I haven't seen before, with good colors and clear pictures. It can't be entirely in black and white. My brain doesn't like that. And I guess I've seen a lot of patterns, because nothing I flipped through grabbed me. There's a frugal part of my nature that declares, if I only had enough imagination, I could make this from a near pattern I have at home. I want to be fired by someone else's imagination, or that thirty bucks stays in my wallet.

That's okay. There's nothing wrong with being careful with your money. Actually, I respect my mother and grandmother, who apparently can have money in the bank, and say "no" to something they'd really like. But I admit that I am missing that gene, as I left the bookstore and spent over three hundred bucks on an assemble-it-yourself swimming pool. *sigh* Think of the yarn and the books that aren't going to happen now, because I had a buying urge and couldn't find a book.

My shawl is actually coming along, and it hasn't been so bad. The knitting was difficult at first, but now I've got a feel for when I've messed up, and I haven't had to frog, thankfully. And I'm far enough along now that someone would actually have to take a scissors to it before I would contemplate tearing it out. My computer is still incognito, and I'm not getting to everyone's site to see how or if your shawls are coming along, but I'm working on it. Have a wonderful summer day! I'll likely spend mine trying to figure out how to make ground level enough to place a pool on.